Ultra-thin flexible plates created, ideal for drone wings

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed plates that could help in devices where a low weight, high material strength material is needed. The researchers created these ultra thin plates (between 25 and 100 nanometers thick) by using corrugated plates of aluminum oxide. The plates can be bent and twisted by hand, but always return to their original shape.

One of the researchers, Igor Bargatin, explained that the material aluminum oxide is ordinarily quite brittle. “But the plates bend, twist, deform and recover their shape in such a way that you would think they are made out of plastic. The first time we saw it, I could hardly believe it.”

The researchers explain that “[u]nlike unpatterned ultrathin films, which tend to warp or even roll up because of residual stress gradients, our plate metamaterials can be engineered to be extremely flat.” This also allows it to return to its original shape even after being bent at a sharp angle.

The reason why these plates have the ability to “pop-back” to their original shape without damage has something to do with its honeycomb structure, which is part of a new field of research known as mechanical metamaterials. It’s a field of study that looks at new ways of assembling things. Researchers seek to change the properties by arranging how its structured (rather than its chemistry) at the microscopic level. Sometimes this results in surprising elasticity, which Bargatin did not expect out of such a “ceramic” material. By using corrugated plates of aluminum oxide, they were able to change its properties.